Dec 8 (Reuters) – NextEra Energy expanded its partnership with Alphabet’s Google Cloud to scale up data center capacity, while securing over 2.5 gigawatts of clean energy contracts from Meta across the U.S., the company said on Monday.
Shares of NextEra were up 2.7% in premarket trading.
Under the expanded deal with Google Cloud, the companies will develop multiple new gigawatt-scale (GW) data centre campuses, each with accompanying generation and capacity.
NextEra and Google Cloud plan to launch an AI-powered product by mid-2026 to predict equipment issues, optimize crew scheduling and boost grid reliability amid storms, aging assets, and rising demand.
The deal comes as U.S. electricity demand grows due to rapid AI adoption, prompting cloud companies and utilities to secure land, grid connections and new generation to support large data center loads.
In October, the company had partnered with Google to restart an Iowa nuclear power plant shut down five years ago.
The technology industry’s quest for massive amounts of electricity for AI processing has renewed interest in the country’s nuclear reactors.
NextEra said it had signed 11 power purchase agreements and two energy storage agreements with Meta, totaling over 2.5 GW of clean energy contracts. The projects are scheduled to come online between 2026 and 2028.
The utility also reached an agreement with WPPI Energy to continue supplying 168 megawatts of the output from the Point Beach Nuclear Plant in Two Rivers into the 2050s.
Separately, NextEra forecast higher adjusted profit in 2026 as well as the current-year as it continues to benefit from the surge in power demand.
NextEra now expects adjusted earnings for 2025 of between $3.62 and $3.70 per share, compared with its prior view of between $3.45 and $3.70 per share.
For 2026, it expects adjusted profit between $3.92 and $4.02 per share, compared with its prior view of between $3.63 and $4.00 per share.
(Reporting by Vallari Srivastava, Sumit Saha and Katha Kalia in Bengaluru; Editing by Tasim Zahid and Shinjini Ganguli)
